Traffic alert: Lanes back open after fatal crash on Julia Tuttle Causeway

A woman was killed in an accident on the Julia Tuttle Causeway early Wednesday morning, shutting down westbound traffic for five hours.

According to the Florida Highway Patrol, Tatiana Sanchez, 29, was driving a Honda Civic west on the causeway at around 5 a.m. when she hit the guardrail just east of the exit to U.S. 1/Biscayne Boulevard, spun out of control, and collided with a Porsche Panamera.

She and Jose Enrique Gomez, 35, the passenger in the Porsche, stepped out into traffic and were hit by a Hyundai SUV. Sanchez died; Gomez was taken to Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach with non-life threatening injuries, as was the Porsche’s female driver. The driver of the Hyundai, Steve Bruce Waldman, stayed on the scene and cooperated with the investigation, according to the FHP. All westbound lanes were closed until 10 a.m.

FHP spokesperson Jose Sanchez said the incident was a warning to get out of the way after an accident.

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"A situation like this, you have an accident, our advice is to get off the road as far as you can," Sanchez said. "You don’t want to be in traffic with cars going 60 or 70 miles an hour."

Accidents on the Julia Tuttle Causeway, one of the main arteries between Miami and Miami Beach, usually involve pedestrians or bicyclists, according to Sanchez. The same area of the roadway was the site of another fatal accident last April, when a woman driving east hit a bicyclist, hurling him into Biscayne Bay.